Writing Your Brand Story and Brand Mission

Step 2: Focusing on your brand story and mission

I hope you remember that for the next few weeks, I’m partnering with Fiverr to show you how to build a brand from the bottom up! As a solopreneur what I love about Fiverr is that it gives me extra sets of hands to help me get more done. Their freelance services cover just about everything you can imagine which is going to be a huge help. YUGE. In case you missed the first episode and post, the brand I’ll be building is centered around these comfy and cute slippers. This week we will be talking about your brand mission.

Last week we talked about the importance of identifying your customers and how Fiverr can help with services like customer market research and surveys. I even had a cool freebie to help you bring all that research to life. Check out episode 1 if you missed it!

Storytelling

This week we’re going from who to what.

Have you noticed how some businesses make you fall in love with them? Like right off the bat of meeting, you’re ready to be bffs? Then wondered to yourself, how do they do that??

That right there is the power of a boss brand. They connect with us on a deeply emotional level and make us feel like you’re in on their party. And let’s admit, being on that guest list makes us feel damn good.

So, how do they do that? Well, it’s more than just a happy accident. It all starts with a story.

Storytelling is a part of human nature. When you share your brand story people are able to develop a trusting relationship with you. Think about it, would you rather buy something from someone you know nothing about or someone you know, trust, and like? I think we’d all vote for the latter.

My What

You’re probably wondering why I picked slippers to be my first product right? Well, here’s my story:

Peru trip brand mission

When I was in college I went on a trip to Peru to do some service work and I discovered these slippers while I was there. I loved them so much I began importing them from Alibaba, like before Alibaba was a thing (*whispers to side* so sketch) and I would sell them around campus straight out of my backpack. I’ve been wearing mine ever since which has been a long time. A. Long. Time. But I decided I wanted a fresh pair and lightbulb moment – I thought, I should totally resurrect the product for Slippers 2.0. New and improved and branded.

Now here’s the other half of that lightbulb moment. Earlier this year, I began coaching and consulting on my own which meant a lot more hours working from home. All of a sudden my work wear looked very different. Pants, what pants?

But seriously. I started calling my slippers my “work from home shoes”. Which got me thinking, about the market research that I’d done. I wasn’t in an empty boat. There’s a heck of a lot of us working from home. In fact, one piece of research stated that 40% of us are going to be part of the freelance economy by 2020. And for all of us, our definition of work wear is different because we have the luxury to wear whatever we want. That lead me to the idea for my new brand – a line of apparel and accessories that suits the freelance lifestyle. Clothes that allow you to feel free to be and work from where you choose – wherever you are in the world.

Why You Do What You Do – Your Brand Mission Statement

One of the things you’re going to uncover as you’re writing your brand story is your brand “why”. That is, why you do what you do? Why are you building this brand in the first place?

The way the answer to that question often manifests itself is in your mission statement. I like to think about your brand mission as the most important promise you will make to your customers. It is a declaration of what you’re going to do for your customers and how you plan to make it happen.

I’ve decided that my brand’s mission is to inspire entrepreneurial spirits to embrace their journey by redefining modern workwear. If you want more inspiration writing your mission statement, I’ve left a link below to a free download with 20 more examples.

Your brand mission is also where you begin to introduce your brand values.

It’s an important opportunity to reveal what you care about and will deepen the emotional bond you have with your core customers.

You brand story, mission, and values all make for great website content. You often find them on the “About” page and when done well, you can feel them come through in all of the content a brand produces.

With this in mind, I enlisted the help of a Fiverr content writer to help me start to write copy that I’ll be able to use once I’m ready to bring my brand online.